Cool things are happening to trails at Mount Rainier

WTA volunteers have been busy at Mount Rainier this summer. So far, WTA volunteers have contributed over 30 days of work on trails around the Park, totaling 3,923 hours with the participation of over 200 individual volunteers. What exactly have all of these volunteers accomplished? Here’s a glimpse:

Boundary Trail:

This trail has not been maintained for years, and the Park requested that crews start to “re-open” this trail, located near the Paul’s Peak trailhead. Organic matter was scraped and dug off the surface of the trail at 1 mile in for a ½ mile section. Again, at 2 miles in, ½ mile of trail was alternately benched (reestablished) or scraped of loose organic material as needed. Two loose logs were pushed from the upslope to the downslope and a large rock in the trail was dug up and resituated to make the trail more easily passable. The crew cut back brush to about three miles in.

Carbon River Road:

This spring, volunteers participated on a weeklong WTA Volunteer Vacation to create a trail along the corridor of Carbon River Road. It may not be driveable, but it sure is hikeable. Volunteers Removed any and all obstacles in way, creating approximately 1,500 feet of trail in just one week.

Chenuis Falls Trail:

500′ of new trail created over the course of five work parties. This entailed roughing in (removing organic material), cutting back brush, and establishing a good tread. A switchback was installed to get the trail down to the riverbed and an “island” was built in an attempt to prevent part of the trail from returning to the river (for the time being).

Cougar Rock to Longmire:

On June 30th, 79 REI employees from REI’s Distribution Center joined 15 WTA crew leaders to honor the life of their lost colleague, Annette Blakely, as part of a Memorial work party.

On June 30th, 79 REI employees from REI’s Distribution Center joined 15 WTA crew leaders to honor the life of their lost colleague, Annette Blakely, as part of a Memorial work party. The crew worked a section of new trail that will replace the washed-out trail from Cougar Rock towards Longmire. Approximately 30 people worked on salvaging native plants with SCA while the rest of the group worked on sections of re-route (new trail construction), totaling about 300 yards of completed (or down to mineral soil) trail. Lots of root/stump/duff removal. Although the group got down to mineral soil on most of these sections, there is still fill material needed to get the tread up to desired grade in many places.

Where the Glacier Basin Trail once resided (in red)

Glacier Basin Trail:

On Nat’l Trails Day, one group worked on re-creating a trail to the river, as the previous one was washed out by the November floods. The crew did things such as building a trail bed, setting up rock approach ramps up to the two foot bridges, and removing stumps, big rocks, and rotten logs from the trail bed. The other group worked on the Glacier Basin trail, doing some work to make this the temporary trail, as the Park Service is getting ready to re-route this popular climbing trail within the next three years.

Paul’s Peak Trail:

The crew re-established a 550′ section of tread leading from the trailhead and improved the side-hill to create a safe and passable trail, cutting back brush from the trail corridor as necessary. At two miles up the trail, a 40′ section of trail was widened with another 15′ section of root excavation to re-bench trail, with additional brushing. At about 2.5 miles in, another ½ mi of trail was benched in, roots dug out to restablish tread and two rocky sections were treated.

If you want to get in on the action, sign up at www.wta.org. Work parties on the weekends tend to fill quickly, so try to sign up early. Some work parties are listed as TBD, to give the Park flexibility as they continue to scout trails and triage the work to be done. Some work parties are annual maintenance (cutting back brush, improving drainage and the trail tread) while others address storm damage (repairing wash-outs, removing downed trees and constructing re-routes); both are important and need your help!